1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus allowing for the automatic production by percolation of alimentary liquids and particularly hot drinks such as coffee obtained by passing water at an appropriate temperature across a bed of infusible products in the pulverized state such as ground coffee.
2. Description and Background Information and Relevant Material
The invention has as an aim to allow for the manufacture, under entirely automatic conditions, and without human intervention by a waiter or user, other than the transmission of an initial control signal, of a hot drink such as an "expresso" type coffee, i.e., delivered and made available to the consumer immediately and directly after the percolation phase.
In apparatus of this type, it is known that the infusible substance which may be in the form of a powder will have a granulometry, dryness, etc. which may vary from day to day. As a result, when using apparatus which has been preprogrammed to provide an infusion liquid at a fixed temperature, for a fixed period of time, in a fixed amount, the quality of the final product may vary considerably.
This effect is further increased since in those systems wherein the infusible charge is compressed by a given amount, the extent of compression will result in a different quality of product again depending upon the compressibility of a given charge of material.